Discussion Dates: Friday 23rd January to Friday 6th February
Questions:
1. What would you give this book out of 10 and why?
Genevieve: I loved it! I found it fascinating and original 9/10
Lucy: I also loved it both times I've read it. 9/10
Mel: 7/10 - I certainly enjoyed it, but don't feel that it has stayed with me in any meaningful or lasting way
Sharyn: 7.5/10 - I feel the same way as Mel. Thoroughly enjoyable and well written but not resonate much with me. Extra 1/2 points for originality of topic.
Amy: 7/10 - I felt it was original and thought provoking but I got a little lost at times and think I might have missed the point around Harlow & Madame Defarge?
2. Early on in We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the character Rosemary Cooke tells the reader that she will start her story "in the middle." Why is it important to her to skip the beginning?
Genevieve: Because then she would have to reveal the 'secret' to the audience and she wanted to explain the relationships without that factor
Lucy: It was important for us to know Rosemary and Fern as sisters before we knew Fern as a chimpanzee. The reader needed to see the depth of love between the sisters and the grief that Rosemary has felt all her life at losing her sister before our judgement was clouded by the knowledge that Fern was a chimpanzee.
Mel: I agree with Lucy, I also think that it was important to Rosemary to start her story at the point that leads her to start recovering from the trauma's of her childhood - when her brother reentered her life, and she gained some information about Fern and her whereabouts
Sharyn: I agree. I confess that I was slightly disappointed when Fern turned out to be a chimpanzee but then I quickly appreciated the originality of the storyline. I also felt like the tone of the book changed after the 'secret' was revealed. The writing and sentiment was so sassy (or 'surreptitiously smart' as one reviewer accurately called it) at the start whereas I felt it became more serious, reflective and sentimental afterwards.
Mel: Thank you for mentioning this Sharyn as I meant to do the same. The writing in the first few chapters danced off the page - they were full of sass. I was imagining Rosemary as being played in a movie by Lena Dunham basically playing herself. But this did change as the book wore on. And I too was slightly disappointed that Fern was a chimp - I had visions of a conjoined twins separated at birth or something of that nature.
3. What does the relationship between Rosemary and Fern suggest about the compatibility of humans and primates?
Genevieve: that is it close but not really that close, and that both have a degree of 'power' over the other
Lucy: I think it rather highlights the incompatability. We may have very similar characteristics and intelligence and therefore think we are compatible, I assume that is why so many of these studies have been done on chimpanzees, but we are not the same. I don't think there have been any cases where chimps raised alongside humans have either lived to adulthood or lived to adulthood without having to be put behind bars. A few years ago I watched the pretty heart breaking story of Nim and it followed similar lines to Fern's story. Everything was fine while the chimp was small but once he reached adulthood he was no longer safe to be with. Or perhaps it is only the way that these experiments have been done that highlights the incompatability. Perhaps if chimps were to raise a human child the story would be different....
Mel: I do agree that humans and primates have a lot to learn from each other, but keeping an animal or this size, intelligence and unpredictability in your home with your family is unnatural and unnecessary and should have been much more tightly regulated.
4. How did being co-raised with a chimpanzee impact Rosemary's development? In what ways was she different from other, "normal" children? How does she still differ from them to this day?
Genevieve: it impacted on her body language and her ability to form close human relationships
Lucy: It defined her. From her point of view there was always a comparison between her and Fern in a way that we are always told not to do with our children but also she knew no different. She knew no life without Fern. It wasn't just her closeness to Fern it was also that her house was full of the students constantly taking notes and paying them both an enormous amount of attention. Sorry - I got sidetracked and didn't manage to finish... I had more to say on this point but now can't remember it all properly.
Mel: Rosemary's parents put her in a very unfair position. We are all a product of our upbringing and are really just a part of our parents narrative - but to define your child so completely by the decisions you make on their behalf is not ok.
Sharyn: The experiment impacted on Rosemary's development in many ways - primarily her identity (she never really enjoyed much time as the centre of attention in the family, much like a twin in that sense), body language, sense of worth (Fern was always an unfair point of comparison), insecurity about close human relationships (as a result of Fern leaving), guilt (over her perceived role in Fern's disappearance) and sexuality.
5. Consider Rosemary's father and mother. Are they good parents?
Genevieve: ahhh NO! Not to humans or apes!
Mel: No, although I was pleased that Rosemary grew close to her mother at the end of the book. I guess they were all they had left and complex, problematic families are, in most cases, better than no family!
Lucy: I'm not sure that I agree. Indeed in hindsight the way they raised their children did not turn out so well for either the humans or the primates but I feel they attempted it from the stand point of good parents. There is a point where, once Rosemary is able to talk to her mother about it all, her mother says 'I wanted you to have an extraordinary life'. Who would not want that for their child? We connect and hear less emotionally about her father but we know how much her mother suffered with her children's disappearances. I think they were good parents in the same way that we are all good parents muddling through, making mistakes as we go along.
Sharyn: My initial reaction was to think how selfish Rosemary's parents were to try the experiment but then I thought about all the different ways in which children are brought up around the world and how potentially enriching and positive the experience could have been. I think both parents approached it with good intentions and I can totally relate to her mother's comments about wanting her to have an extraordinary life.
Amy: I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing my parents used me as an experiment. I think perhaps Rosemary's father had selfish ambition at the heart of their decision to impose the girls twin sisterhood. However, I don’t think Rosemary’s mother foresaw the family debacle her innocent desire for her daughter to have an ‘extraordinary life’ would engender, and the complex repercussions her daughter would suffer in its wake. Also, by reacting to Fern's disappearance as a death and keeping that "death" a secret the parents caused their children tremendous trauma.
, 6. What is your opinion of Rosemary's brother, Lowell Cooke? Are his extreme views and actions at all justified? Does he truly have Fern's well-being at heart?
Genevieve: it was hard to get to know this character, he felt a bit like a literary device to me so the author could make a political point about the ethics of animal research
Mel: His response was extreme but I guess he was living in a very extreme situation. His fling with Harlow was a bit annoying (as was Harlow full stop). I found her character chaotic and unhelpful and as a character I didn't really believe in her.
Lucy: I think he does have Fern's well being at heart but in a misguided way. We must remember that when he committed his first crime he was only 17 and had just discovered that Fern had not been sent to a farm. He was extremely angry and it was more a hitting out against his father than a statement for animal rights I thought. However, having done that he was then, by his own admission sucked into the animal rights underworld in a way that he could not get out of.
Sharyn: I think that there are many more constructive ways of advancing animal rights than the sort of dangerous and violent acts that he was engaging in. However, he was very young and angry when he started down that path and he wouldn't have had the maturity or the intellect to act in a more constructive way. He did have Fern's best interests at heart but he just went about it the wrong way and unfortunately ruined his life in the process.
Amy: Lucy I agree with your comments and Mel I agree about the whole thing with Harlow and Madame Defarge. Lost me a bit there.
Mel: Yes - what WAS the story with the puppet? Obviously it had some significance that was lost on me....
Amy: Had a quick search on the internet and found some comments from Fowler. I get that the puppet who cannot speak for itself mirrors many aspects of life for both Fern and Rosemary but why Madame Defarge particularly? Here's her answer:
' I wanted a character whose likeness would be immediately identifiable, and Madame Defarge’s knitting makes her identity obvious. I wanted an antique so that she would be valuable, so it had to be an old character. I liked the resonances of equality, liberty, and fraternity from the French Revolution as they might apply to non-humans as well as humans. But in that mysterious way the brain sometimes thinks of things without our noticing, I realized later that I must have had the name of Stephanie LaFarge in my head. LaFarge was Nim Chimpsky’s first human mother. To get from LaFarge to Defarge is no great leap, and apparently my hind-brain was leaping'.
7. How does Harlow Fielding's whirlwind entrance into Rosemary Cooke's world alter Rosemary's trajectory through life?
Lucy: I agree with Mel that she was an annoying and possibly unnecessary character. And again her fling with Lowell was annoying. I thought Rosemary's flatmate could have been used more to help the story along instead of Harlow.
Sharyn: Maybe the point of Harlow's character was to show us that Rosemary was actually relatively well-adjusted, all things considered. Despite her stories about her family background, Harlow grew up in a stable, conservative family and ended up more troubled than Rosemary.
8. Think about the significance of memory and storytelling in the novel. How is Rosemary's memory-and, consequently, her narrative-affected by the emotional trauma she has experienced?
Lucy: Storytelling is a theme that occurs throughout the novel. I liked the way KJF kept reminding us through Rosemary that this was written from Rosemary's point of view, remembering events that happened many years ago, and clouded by the immense trauma that surrounded those events. Rosemary warns us not to believe her story unconditionally and there are small instances that illustrate this such as the cat story and Lowell's revelation that they never spoke about Fern because Rosemary could not cope with it, whereas up until that point Rosemary had described it as a failing of her parents and another illustration of how broken her family was.
Sharyn: The significance of memory in the novel was interesting. It served as a reminder of how much emotional baggage we carry around which is probably not warranted as our memories are flawed. It is sad that Rosemary carried a sense of guilt and shame for such a long time for something that she did not do and was too young to clearly remember and understand in any event. The relief she must have felt at finally understanding what happened paved the way for her to find peace with herself and her family at the end of the book.
9. Do you think Rosemary comes to find peace with her family history by the end of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves?
Mel: Yes I do, I liked this way that she resolved her relationship with both Fern and her mother. I was surprised that Fern reentered the story, and was very touched with the descriptions of Ferns early interaction with Rosemary and her mother after so many years apart.
Lucy: In many ways I think she does, certainly with her mother. I think there is still a longing inside her for Fern. She talks about how she will now only ever communicate with Fern through a glass panel, how she will never entangle her fingers in Fern's hair again etc. But with her primary children she does appear to find a way to live the life her weird upbringing taught her.
10. Is there anything you would like to add or further questions that you would like to ask?
Genevieve: As a psychology teacher it was fascinating to see the level of research that went into this novel, and it was interesting that KJF's own father was an animal behaviour psychologist which was the inspiration for the book
Lucy: We've just spent a month with my parents at their house in Kenya where baboons and various types of monkey wander through the garden. The baboons particularly have very little fear of us and it was interesting to be reading this at the same time as, in great trepidation, watching my children playing pretty close to some large primates! They are fascinating to watch, how the social grouping works, how the older ones look out for the smaller ones etc. but the big males are huge and incredibly strong and yet much smaller and weaker than a chimp. It amazes me that anyone ever thought it would be safe to rear a chimp.
Sharyn: Wow, that sounds so exotic Lucy! What a great experience for the kids.
Mel: Amazing Lucy. I wished that my parents lived in Kenya! We have got to save our pennies to get the kids to Africa!
Questions:
1. What would you give this book out of 10 and why?
Genevieve: I loved it! I found it fascinating and original 9/10
Lucy: I also loved it both times I've read it. 9/10
Mel: 7/10 - I certainly enjoyed it, but don't feel that it has stayed with me in any meaningful or lasting way
Sharyn: 7.5/10 - I feel the same way as Mel. Thoroughly enjoyable and well written but not resonate much with me. Extra 1/2 points for originality of topic.
Amy: 7/10 - I felt it was original and thought provoking but I got a little lost at times and think I might have missed the point around Harlow & Madame Defarge?
2. Early on in We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the character Rosemary Cooke tells the reader that she will start her story "in the middle." Why is it important to her to skip the beginning?
Genevieve: Because then she would have to reveal the 'secret' to the audience and she wanted to explain the relationships without that factor
Lucy: It was important for us to know Rosemary and Fern as sisters before we knew Fern as a chimpanzee. The reader needed to see the depth of love between the sisters and the grief that Rosemary has felt all her life at losing her sister before our judgement was clouded by the knowledge that Fern was a chimpanzee.
Mel: I agree with Lucy, I also think that it was important to Rosemary to start her story at the point that leads her to start recovering from the trauma's of her childhood - when her brother reentered her life, and she gained some information about Fern and her whereabouts
Sharyn: I agree. I confess that I was slightly disappointed when Fern turned out to be a chimpanzee but then I quickly appreciated the originality of the storyline. I also felt like the tone of the book changed after the 'secret' was revealed. The writing and sentiment was so sassy (or 'surreptitiously smart' as one reviewer accurately called it) at the start whereas I felt it became more serious, reflective and sentimental afterwards.
Mel: Thank you for mentioning this Sharyn as I meant to do the same. The writing in the first few chapters danced off the page - they were full of sass. I was imagining Rosemary as being played in a movie by Lena Dunham basically playing herself. But this did change as the book wore on. And I too was slightly disappointed that Fern was a chimp - I had visions of a conjoined twins separated at birth or something of that nature.
3. What does the relationship between Rosemary and Fern suggest about the compatibility of humans and primates?
Genevieve: that is it close but not really that close, and that both have a degree of 'power' over the other
Lucy: I think it rather highlights the incompatability. We may have very similar characteristics and intelligence and therefore think we are compatible, I assume that is why so many of these studies have been done on chimpanzees, but we are not the same. I don't think there have been any cases where chimps raised alongside humans have either lived to adulthood or lived to adulthood without having to be put behind bars. A few years ago I watched the pretty heart breaking story of Nim and it followed similar lines to Fern's story. Everything was fine while the chimp was small but once he reached adulthood he was no longer safe to be with. Or perhaps it is only the way that these experiments have been done that highlights the incompatability. Perhaps if chimps were to raise a human child the story would be different....
Mel: I do agree that humans and primates have a lot to learn from each other, but keeping an animal or this size, intelligence and unpredictability in your home with your family is unnatural and unnecessary and should have been much more tightly regulated.
4. How did being co-raised with a chimpanzee impact Rosemary's development? In what ways was she different from other, "normal" children? How does she still differ from them to this day?
Genevieve: it impacted on her body language and her ability to form close human relationships
Lucy: It defined her. From her point of view there was always a comparison between her and Fern in a way that we are always told not to do with our children but also she knew no different. She knew no life without Fern. It wasn't just her closeness to Fern it was also that her house was full of the students constantly taking notes and paying them both an enormous amount of attention. Sorry - I got sidetracked and didn't manage to finish... I had more to say on this point but now can't remember it all properly.
Mel: Rosemary's parents put her in a very unfair position. We are all a product of our upbringing and are really just a part of our parents narrative - but to define your child so completely by the decisions you make on their behalf is not ok.
Sharyn: The experiment impacted on Rosemary's development in many ways - primarily her identity (she never really enjoyed much time as the centre of attention in the family, much like a twin in that sense), body language, sense of worth (Fern was always an unfair point of comparison), insecurity about close human relationships (as a result of Fern leaving), guilt (over her perceived role in Fern's disappearance) and sexuality.
5. Consider Rosemary's father and mother. Are they good parents?
Genevieve: ahhh NO! Not to humans or apes!
Mel: No, although I was pleased that Rosemary grew close to her mother at the end of the book. I guess they were all they had left and complex, problematic families are, in most cases, better than no family!
Lucy: I'm not sure that I agree. Indeed in hindsight the way they raised their children did not turn out so well for either the humans or the primates but I feel they attempted it from the stand point of good parents. There is a point where, once Rosemary is able to talk to her mother about it all, her mother says 'I wanted you to have an extraordinary life'. Who would not want that for their child? We connect and hear less emotionally about her father but we know how much her mother suffered with her children's disappearances. I think they were good parents in the same way that we are all good parents muddling through, making mistakes as we go along.
Sharyn: My initial reaction was to think how selfish Rosemary's parents were to try the experiment but then I thought about all the different ways in which children are brought up around the world and how potentially enriching and positive the experience could have been. I think both parents approached it with good intentions and I can totally relate to her mother's comments about wanting her to have an extraordinary life.
Amy: I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing my parents used me as an experiment. I think perhaps Rosemary's father had selfish ambition at the heart of their decision to impose the girls twin sisterhood. However, I don’t think Rosemary’s mother foresaw the family debacle her innocent desire for her daughter to have an ‘extraordinary life’ would engender, and the complex repercussions her daughter would suffer in its wake. Also, by reacting to Fern's disappearance as a death and keeping that "death" a secret the parents caused their children tremendous trauma.
,
6. What is your opinion of Rosemary's brother, Lowell Cooke? Are his extreme views and actions at all justified? Does he truly have Fern's well-being at heart?
Genevieve: it was hard to get to know this character, he felt a bit like a literary device to me so the author could make a political point about the ethics of animal research
Mel: His response was extreme but I guess he was living in a very extreme situation. His fling with Harlow was a bit annoying (as was Harlow full stop). I found her character chaotic and unhelpful and as a character I didn't really believe in her.
Lucy: I think he does have Fern's well being at heart but in a misguided way. We must remember that when he committed his first crime he was only 17 and had just discovered that Fern had not been sent to a farm. He was extremely angry and it was more a hitting out against his father than a statement for animal rights I thought. However, having done that he was then, by his own admission sucked into the animal rights underworld in a way that he could not get out of.
Sharyn: I think that there are many more constructive ways of advancing animal rights than the sort of dangerous and violent acts that he was engaging in. However, he was very young and angry when he started down that path and he wouldn't have had the maturity or the intellect to act in a more constructive way. He did have Fern's best interests at heart but he just went about it the wrong way and unfortunately ruined his life in the process.
Amy: Lucy I agree with your comments and Mel I agree about the whole thing with Harlow and Madame Defarge. Lost me a bit there.
Mel: Yes - what WAS the story with the puppet? Obviously it had some significance that was lost on me....
Amy: Had a quick search on the internet and found some comments from Fowler. I get that the puppet who cannot speak for itself mirrors many aspects of life for both Fern and Rosemary but why Madame Defarge particularly? Here's her answer:
' I wanted a character whose likeness would be immediately identifiable, and Madame Defarge’s knitting makes her identity obvious. I wanted an antique so that she would be valuable, so it had to be an old character. I liked the resonances of equality, liberty, and fraternity from the French Revolution as they might apply to non-humans as well as humans. But in that mysterious way the brain sometimes thinks of things without our noticing, I realized later that I must have had the name of Stephanie LaFarge in my head. LaFarge was Nim Chimpsky’s first human mother. To get from LaFarge to Defarge is no great leap, and apparently my hind-brain was leaping'.
7. How does Harlow Fielding's whirlwind entrance into Rosemary Cooke's world alter Rosemary's trajectory through life?
Genevieve: Talking of Harlow's, if you want to read about Harry Harlow's famous (and shocking) experiments about monkeys and love here is a link
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/p/harlow_love.htm
Lucy: I agree with Mel that she was an annoying and possibly unnecessary character. And again her fling with Lowell was annoying. I thought Rosemary's flatmate could have been used more to help the story along instead of Harlow.
Sharyn: Maybe the point of Harlow's character was to show us that Rosemary was actually relatively well-adjusted, all things considered. Despite her stories about her family background, Harlow grew up in a stable, conservative family and ended up more troubled than Rosemary.
8. Think about the significance of memory and storytelling in the novel. How is Rosemary's memory-and, consequently, her narrative-affected by the emotional trauma she has experienced?
Lucy: Storytelling is a theme that occurs throughout the novel. I liked the way KJF kept reminding us through Rosemary that this was written from Rosemary's point of view, remembering events that happened many years ago, and clouded by the immense trauma that surrounded those events. Rosemary warns us not to believe her story unconditionally and there are small instances that illustrate this such as the cat story and Lowell's revelation that they never spoke about Fern because Rosemary could not cope with it, whereas up until that point Rosemary had described it as a failing of her parents and another illustration of how broken her family was.
Sharyn: The significance of memory in the novel was interesting. It served as a reminder of how much emotional baggage we carry around which is probably not warranted as our memories are flawed. It is sad that Rosemary carried a sense of guilt and shame for such a long time for something that she did not do and was too young to clearly remember and understand in any event. The relief she must have felt at finally understanding what happened paved the way for her to find peace with herself and her family at the end of the book.
9. Do you think Rosemary comes to find peace with her family history by the end of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves?
Mel: Yes I do, I liked this way that she resolved her relationship with both Fern and her mother. I was surprised that Fern reentered the story, and was very touched with the descriptions of Ferns early interaction with Rosemary and her mother after so many years apart.
Lucy: In many ways I think she does, certainly with her mother. I think there is still a longing inside her for Fern. She talks about how she will now only ever communicate with Fern through a glass panel, how she will never entangle her fingers in Fern's hair again etc. But with her primary children she does appear to find a way to live the life her weird upbringing taught her.
10. Is there anything you would like to add or further questions that you would like to ask?
Genevieve: As a psychology teacher it was fascinating to see the level of research that went into this novel, and it was interesting that KJF's own father was an animal behaviour psychologist which was the inspiration for the book
Lucy: We've just spent a month with my parents at their house in Kenya where baboons and various types of monkey wander through the garden. The baboons particularly have very little fear of us and it was interesting to be reading this at the same time as, in great trepidation, watching my children playing pretty close to some large primates! They are fascinating to watch, how the social grouping works, how the older ones look out for the smaller ones etc. but the big males are huge and incredibly strong and yet much smaller and weaker than a chimp. It amazes me that anyone ever thought it would be safe to rear a chimp.
Sharyn: Wow, that sounds so exotic Lucy! What a great experience for the kids.
Mel: Amazing Lucy. I wished that my parents lived in Kenya! We have got to save our pennies to get the kids to Africa!